法國國家圖書館的MS Français 2810 是一本歐洲人遊歷東方的旅行文學合集，裏頭包含了東方神話人物和怪物的細密畫。名為《驚奇之書》(Livre desmerveilles)，這本以豐富鮮明圖案裝飾華美的手抄本，原本是為十五世紀早期法國統治階層欣賞的藝術品所造。在法國的動亂時代，一位法國君主委託製作細密畫並當成禮物贈與另一位君主。這本書的故事顯示了中世紀法國君主之間利用高價藝術品來建立與鞏固的政治關係。此細密畫以「充滿異國情調和富有幻想」為東方的再現而聞名，而充滿異國情調的圖像也是現代學者對於中世紀歐洲如何觀視東方的參照。另一方面，此書也是中世紀歐洲掌權階層視閱讀文化為貴族特權的範本。本論文即對物質文化的再思。如同《驚奇之書》所呈現的，展示了君主的權力並解釋此權力如何投射其本身至細密畫藝術手抄本中的異國東方。手抄本中充滿了東方君臣與神話生物，如同書中的圖像反映了中世紀法國貴族的品味及興趣，文中對《驚奇之書》細密畫的分析著重異國東方如何呈現君主地位與權力的概念。

MS Français 2810 of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France is a compilation of European travel literature of the East that contains miniature paintings of fabulous peoples and monstrous creatures in the East. This sumptuous illuminated manuscript, also known as the Livre des merveilles, that is, Book of Wonders, was first created as an object of art for medieval French princes in the early fifteenth century. And its commission by a French prince and gifting to another prince at a tumultuous time in French history tell a story of the politics of prized art between the lords of France in the Middle Ages. Known for “its exotic and fanciful subjects” in the miniature representations of the East, and mined for such exotic images in modern references to medieval European perceptions of the East, this book is a prime example of the culture of the book as a luxury and privilege for the European elite in the Middle Ages. My essay is a meditation on the way material culture, as embodied in the Merveilles, displays princely power and the way this power projects itself onto the exotic East in the miniature art of the manuscript. The manuscript is as much peopled with fabulous creatures as it is with great lords in the East. As the images in the book reflect the tastes and interests of the medieval French nobility, my analysis of the miniature paintings of the Merveilles focuses on the way the exotic East expresses ideas of princely status and power.